Steel Pad And Ice mat by soft trading

Introduction

First of all I would like to thank soft trading for donating these Pads for me to test today. 

Well to start off im going to answer that nagging question. what is a steel pad and what is an ice mat. Well they are Specially designed mouse pads for Optical mice which most people now days have. 

                               Ice Mat                                                                                                                                            Steel Pad

Well as you can see from the Pictures the Design of the to pads are a lot different the steel pad has a curved bottom. The surface of the Ice mat is made of glass and the steel pad is made of emm guess what, steel. 

Kit

With the to pads you get special Tape To connect to the feet of your optical mouse which helps lower friction between the pad and your mouse. This stuff real works but what I did like is how hard it was to fit with out it peeling off. The Tape on the right is what is supplied with the Steel Pad and that would not stay on my mouse, it kept bending and peeling off so I gave up and tried the tape on the left which came with the Ice mat and I found that worked better as it didn't come off but was harder to cut but not much bother. 

Performance In Gaming

Well to start with im not great at gaming, I play games from time to time and im better than any noob but im still not as good as some hardcore gamers so if my score got better I would notice. 

Test Setup:

Command And Conquer Renegade

Counter Strike

Jedi Knight II Outcast

Well First I tried the Steel Pad. I placed it down and starting capping heads. To begin with my pad kept slipping which I hated as it caused me to die twice but as I carried on it stopped as I learnt not to push so hard. After a few more hours of play I noticed my game play flew up in scores instead of getting the average of 10 kills every map change I was getting 20 I even played with some people I have played with before, so that I new I wasn't playing noobs and still my score was higher. 

Well next onto the Ice pad. I tried Counter strike with this mat and found as with the steel pad my score increased greatly, being top of the server many times instead of the usual second. I thought id make sure this wasn't just fluke of the server by trying it on a final game

Jedi knight follower the same pattern with more kills than usually and lots of very nifty light saber combos. No pad slipping and no problems..

Conclusion

Well my final verdict of these two excellent pads it that they are both very similar in performance so if you are after performance more than looks then what you choose doesn't matter. Looks wise I would choose the Ice mat as it is made of a better looking material with the website name printed inside, behind the glass. Some people might rather choose the Steel pad as it has a nice shape which most square mats lack. So all in all it is a self choice depending on what you personally like. Performance is no different only looks.  

I will give ice Pad 9/10

Pros: EVERYTHING! 

Good performance

Good Looks

Good non friction Tape Supplied

Cons:

Could shatter If Dropped

I will give Steel Pad 9/10

Pros:

Very nice Shapes

Good Performance

Cons:

Smudges Easy.

Tape supplied Peels off easy.